Re: Contagion
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-F_QF1XTXI]Those damn short sellers.... - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-F_QF1XTXI]Those damn short sellers.... - YouTube[/ame]
MESO-Rx
Anabolic Steroids
European Union
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Re: Contagion
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpzxf_flm8M]Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpzxf_flm8M]Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb - YouTube[/ame]
Re: Contagion
The eurozone really has only days to avoid collapse
The eurozone really has only days to avoid collapse - FT.com
The eurozone really has only days to avoid collapse
The eurozone really has only days to avoid collapse - FT.com
Re: Contagion
Greeks Balk at Paying Steep New Property Tax
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/world/europe/greeks-balk-at-paying-new-property-tax.html
November 27, 2011
By SUZANNE DALEY
NEA IONIA, Greece — Ioannis Chatzis is 86 and lives in a tiny, single room, surviving on a pension that is just enough to pay for food and care for his bedridden wife.
But in its latest push to raise cash, the Greek government sent him a new $372 real estate tax bill, incorporated into his October electric statement.
Mr. Chatzis says he is being asked to choose between lights and paying for his wife’s medicines, since he cannot afford both on his $720-a-month pension.
“This is how we are treated,” he said recently, his face a mixture of fury and despair. “I have nothing left to give. I will not be paying it.”
Mr. Chatzis is far from alone in that vow, and it is not certain that the Greek government will do anything about the tax rebels.
As the first due dates approach on the Greek government’s novel idea of linking electricity to tax payments, a growing resentment is settling over many parts of this country — one that some local officials believe could even shake its political stability.
Already there are pockets of resistance popping up in dozens of areas, including this northern suburb of Athens, where Mayor Iraklis Gotsis has promised to fight the tax bills in court. He has also organized a group of electricians willing to reconnect — illegally — anyone who is cut off. “This thing on top of all the other taxes and salary cuts has made people snap,” Mr. Gotsis said recently. “It is the drop that made the glass full.”
Many Greeks consider the new tax, which makes no exceptions for the unemployed or the elderly and is much higher than any real estate tax they have paid before, to be one more sign of the tough austerity measures they are suffering under as a requirement for European aid. European finance ministers will meet Tuesday to decide whether to release the next $10.6 billion allotment to the Greek government.
In the past, most Greeks paid real estate taxes when they bought, sold or inherited property. They also paid comparatively small yearly taxes to municipalities. Someone in Mr. Chatzis’s circumstances might have paid less than $133 a year in total. Now he will have to pay an additional $373 this year and the next.
In September, under pressure to come up with $2.6 billion to close a budget gap, and losing the battle against tax cheats, Greek officials settled on the idea of linking a new real estate tax to bills from the government-owned power company.
The new tax, which they say they will levy again next year, is based on square footage, the age of the building and the average value of a neighborhood, and has nothing to do with the taxpayer’s income.
But lately, even the government seems to be having second thoughts about the tax. Last week, the power company announced that it would send out cutoff notices, but said that it would hold back on taking any such measures until the government had considered the circumstances of the affected families. Meanwhile, union workers occupied the power company’s billing center, preventing any new bills from going out. Some Greeks just do not believe that the government will ever have the nerve to cut power to thousands of homes. They say it will be yet another change of course, as is so often the case here. Deadlines are set and then rescinded. Tough tax laws are put forth and then amnesties are offered.
“I honestly don’t believe they will do this,” said Pantelis Ksiridakis, the mayor of a wealthier suburb, who described the policy as a form of blackmail that may work for the rich, but is crushing to the poor. “They are pushing people to the limit with this.”
“This is a tax that nobody expected, and they are demanding cash. No structured payments,” he added.
In Nea Ionia, Mayor Gotsis has offered to have municipal lawyers defend those who cannot, or will not, pay the tax; about 1,000 residents have come forward so far.
Most, he said, fall into the first category. Greece’s creditors, he said, forget that large numbers of Greeks, even if they have evaded taxes at the margins, are not wealthy. About 25 percent of the small stores in Nea Ionia have closed in the last two years, hit hard by the country’s deepening recession and rising unemployment rate.
Vangelis Avlonitis is one of the electricians who has volunteered to restore power, if the mayor asks him to. His shop is not far from Town Hall and is decorated these days with the neon signs he made for his customers before their shops went out of business.
Mr. Avlonitis says he is barely scraping by himself. But for others it is much worse. One neighbor stopped by last week and told him her pension was $440 a month and her tax bill was $480.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, pointing out a ladder he had bought in case the power company cut the electricity at the poles.
Not everyone in this suburb is refusing to pay. Some say they will find the money because they believe their country is in trouble. One man, who declined to give his name, said he, too, had lost his business — a snack shop — last year. But he is surviving on the income from a few properties he owns and will pay the new tax.
“We have to help the state,” he said. “The tax is unfair. We are not the first ones who should be paying. The ones who have Swiss bank accounts should be paying. But that is still how things are here.”
The Greek government has struggled to improve tax collection. At first, officials were optimistic that they could capture at least a portion of an estimated $27 billion in unpaid taxes each year.
Various experts have put Greece’s shadow economy at about 25 percent of its gross domestic product, compared with less than 8 percent for the United States.
But last year, Greek officials collected even less than the year before. Some of the decline in revenues resulted from the decline in the economy. But some new tax collection strategies — incentives to collect receipts so that fewer business could work off the books, for instance — backfired and actually reduced people’s tax bills.
And the state seemed to make little progress in getting the scofflaws to pay. Some 70 percent of the tax collected came from salaried employees and retirees, who have little way to hide their income. Meanwhile, 7 out of 10 self-employed workers, including doctors, dentists, engineers, accountants, taxi drivers and small business owners, indicated on their tax forms that they had made less than $16,000 a year, a figure that most experts find laughable.
The Greek Public Power Corporation recently announced that of the 86,000 bills that came due recently — a tiny fraction of the 5.5 million households in Greece — 73 percent had been paid. Its press release struck an optimistic tone, suggesting the rate of payment was similar to the usual rate.
But critics point out that such a percentage means that the government could be facing the prospect of tens of thousands of shut-offs in the middle of winter.
Some of the rebellious pushback has bordered on the humorous. For instance, the Health Ministry in downtown Athens was in the dark for four hours last week, courtesy of the power company’s union workers.
Since government ministries owe the power company $180 million, the union argues, why shouldn’t they suffer cutoffs?
There are also half a dozen legal protests pending. And a YouTube video describing how to reconnect your electricity if you get cut off has gone viral.
In Nea Ionia recently, Mr. Chatzis, sitting near an electric heater at a friend’s hardware store, was fretting about the tax bill and remembering the years he spent as a prisoner in World War II after resisting the Axis occupation of his country. “Now it seems like the fascists are back again,” he said of the pressure on Greece to raise more revenue and narrow its budget deficit. “What did we fight for?”
Greeks Balk at Paying Steep New Property Tax
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/world/europe/greeks-balk-at-paying-new-property-tax.html
November 27, 2011
By SUZANNE DALEY
NEA IONIA, Greece — Ioannis Chatzis is 86 and lives in a tiny, single room, surviving on a pension that is just enough to pay for food and care for his bedridden wife.
But in its latest push to raise cash, the Greek government sent him a new $372 real estate tax bill, incorporated into his October electric statement.
Mr. Chatzis says he is being asked to choose between lights and paying for his wife’s medicines, since he cannot afford both on his $720-a-month pension.
“This is how we are treated,” he said recently, his face a mixture of fury and despair. “I have nothing left to give. I will not be paying it.”
Mr. Chatzis is far from alone in that vow, and it is not certain that the Greek government will do anything about the tax rebels.
As the first due dates approach on the Greek government’s novel idea of linking electricity to tax payments, a growing resentment is settling over many parts of this country — one that some local officials believe could even shake its political stability.
Already there are pockets of resistance popping up in dozens of areas, including this northern suburb of Athens, where Mayor Iraklis Gotsis has promised to fight the tax bills in court. He has also organized a group of electricians willing to reconnect — illegally — anyone who is cut off. “This thing on top of all the other taxes and salary cuts has made people snap,” Mr. Gotsis said recently. “It is the drop that made the glass full.”
Many Greeks consider the new tax, which makes no exceptions for the unemployed or the elderly and is much higher than any real estate tax they have paid before, to be one more sign of the tough austerity measures they are suffering under as a requirement for European aid. European finance ministers will meet Tuesday to decide whether to release the next $10.6 billion allotment to the Greek government.
In the past, most Greeks paid real estate taxes when they bought, sold or inherited property. They also paid comparatively small yearly taxes to municipalities. Someone in Mr. Chatzis’s circumstances might have paid less than $133 a year in total. Now he will have to pay an additional $373 this year and the next.
In September, under pressure to come up with $2.6 billion to close a budget gap, and losing the battle against tax cheats, Greek officials settled on the idea of linking a new real estate tax to bills from the government-owned power company.
The new tax, which they say they will levy again next year, is based on square footage, the age of the building and the average value of a neighborhood, and has nothing to do with the taxpayer’s income.
But lately, even the government seems to be having second thoughts about the tax. Last week, the power company announced that it would send out cutoff notices, but said that it would hold back on taking any such measures until the government had considered the circumstances of the affected families. Meanwhile, union workers occupied the power company’s billing center, preventing any new bills from going out. Some Greeks just do not believe that the government will ever have the nerve to cut power to thousands of homes. They say it will be yet another change of course, as is so often the case here. Deadlines are set and then rescinded. Tough tax laws are put forth and then amnesties are offered.
“I honestly don’t believe they will do this,” said Pantelis Ksiridakis, the mayor of a wealthier suburb, who described the policy as a form of blackmail that may work for the rich, but is crushing to the poor. “They are pushing people to the limit with this.”
“This is a tax that nobody expected, and they are demanding cash. No structured payments,” he added.
In Nea Ionia, Mayor Gotsis has offered to have municipal lawyers defend those who cannot, or will not, pay the tax; about 1,000 residents have come forward so far.
Most, he said, fall into the first category. Greece’s creditors, he said, forget that large numbers of Greeks, even if they have evaded taxes at the margins, are not wealthy. About 25 percent of the small stores in Nea Ionia have closed in the last two years, hit hard by the country’s deepening recession and rising unemployment rate.
Vangelis Avlonitis is one of the electricians who has volunteered to restore power, if the mayor asks him to. His shop is not far from Town Hall and is decorated these days with the neon signs he made for his customers before their shops went out of business.
Mr. Avlonitis says he is barely scraping by himself. But for others it is much worse. One neighbor stopped by last week and told him her pension was $440 a month and her tax bill was $480.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, pointing out a ladder he had bought in case the power company cut the electricity at the poles.
Not everyone in this suburb is refusing to pay. Some say they will find the money because they believe their country is in trouble. One man, who declined to give his name, said he, too, had lost his business — a snack shop — last year. But he is surviving on the income from a few properties he owns and will pay the new tax.
“We have to help the state,” he said. “The tax is unfair. We are not the first ones who should be paying. The ones who have Swiss bank accounts should be paying. But that is still how things are here.”
The Greek government has struggled to improve tax collection. At first, officials were optimistic that they could capture at least a portion of an estimated $27 billion in unpaid taxes each year.
Various experts have put Greece’s shadow economy at about 25 percent of its gross domestic product, compared with less than 8 percent for the United States.
But last year, Greek officials collected even less than the year before. Some of the decline in revenues resulted from the decline in the economy. But some new tax collection strategies — incentives to collect receipts so that fewer business could work off the books, for instance — backfired and actually reduced people’s tax bills.
And the state seemed to make little progress in getting the scofflaws to pay. Some 70 percent of the tax collected came from salaried employees and retirees, who have little way to hide their income. Meanwhile, 7 out of 10 self-employed workers, including doctors, dentists, engineers, accountants, taxi drivers and small business owners, indicated on their tax forms that they had made less than $16,000 a year, a figure that most experts find laughable.
The Greek Public Power Corporation recently announced that of the 86,000 bills that came due recently — a tiny fraction of the 5.5 million households in Greece — 73 percent had been paid. Its press release struck an optimistic tone, suggesting the rate of payment was similar to the usual rate.
But critics point out that such a percentage means that the government could be facing the prospect of tens of thousands of shut-offs in the middle of winter.
Some of the rebellious pushback has bordered on the humorous. For instance, the Health Ministry in downtown Athens was in the dark for four hours last week, courtesy of the power company’s union workers.
Since government ministries owe the power company $180 million, the union argues, why shouldn’t they suffer cutoffs?
There are also half a dozen legal protests pending. And a YouTube video describing how to reconnect your electricity if you get cut off has gone viral.
In Nea Ionia recently, Mr. Chatzis, sitting near an electric heater at a friend’s hardware store, was fretting about the tax bill and remembering the years he spent as a prisoner in World War II after resisting the Axis occupation of his country. “Now it seems like the fascists are back again,” he said of the pressure on Greece to raise more revenue and narrow its budget deficit. “What did we fight for?”
Re: Contagion
The long shadow of the 1930s
The long shadow of the 1930s - FT.com
Could things go bad again? I mean really bad – Great Depression bad, world war bad? The kind of cataclysmic event my generation has learned to think belongs only in the history books.
There is certainly a sense of foreboding in Europe at the moment. Speaking in Berlin on Monday night, Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, warned: “We are standing on the edge of a precipice.” President Sarkozy of France cautioned recently: “If the euro explodes, Europe would explode. It’s the guarantee of peace in a continent where there were terrible wars.”
European politicians have often indulged in shroud-waving about the threat of war, to rally support for the beloved European project. In normal times, few Europeans take such talk seriously.
On the contrary, war talk seems inherently implausible to people raised in prosperous, peaceful western Europe. I have lived my entire life in a world in which, for all its ups-and-downs, things seemed to be getting steadily better. Nazism had been defeated; dictatorships fell in Spain, Portugal and Greece; the Soviet empire collapsed; apartheid ended in South Africa.
Peace and prosperity became the norm for my generation in the West. It was easy to forget that this set us apart from most of the rest of the world. Reading a book recently by Yan Xuetong, a Chinese academic I know, I was taken aback to come across this sentence: “During the cultural revolution, we often saw people being beaten to death, so you become somewhat immune to it.”
However, over the last 30 years, the hope for peace, prosperity and a reasonable degree of comfort has spread beyond the privileged confines of the West. The China of the Cultural Revolution has given way to the China of the shopping mall and the factory. The India of Mother Theresa is being partly displaced by the India of the IT revolution.
Globalisation has made the world seem like a safer and more homogenous place – as the new middle-classes of Asia and eastern Europe embraced the comforts and values of capitalism. Global peace, which during the cold war seemed to depend on nuclear weapons, now seemed to be underpinned by international trade and a shared embrace of consumerism.
Until the global economic crisis, the words of Tony Blair’s election campaign song in 1997 seemed to capture the spirit of the age – “Things can only get better”.
Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, we have discovered that things can definitely get worse. The question is how much worse?
The risk of a grave economic crisis in Europe is severe. The threats of sovereign-debt defaults and the break-up of the European single currency are rising – and with it, the attendant threats of collapsing banks, popular panic, deep recessions and mass unemployment. That would indeed feel like a modern version of the Great Depression.
The European Union, taken as a whole, is the largest economy in the world – so economic chaos here inevitably has global ramifications. It would depress trade and threaten the global financial system.
The lesson of the 1930s is that a global depression weakens democracies, leads to the rise of radical new political forces – and, in the process, raises the risk of international conflict.
A modern version of the 1930s would see a new generation of nationalist politicians rise to power in Europe, against a background of economic chaos and the break-up of the European Union. Tensions would also rise outside Europe, as the global economic situation worsened. The balance of power in Asia would shift even faster, with a rising China facing a weakened America. In both China and America, an economic crisis would see nationalist and protectionist forces gain influence.
These scenarios are not implausible. And yet, for all the parallels, I still cannot bring myself to believe that we are heading back to the 1930s. There are three main reasons why I think we are likely to escape.
First, the very knowledge of what went wrong, 80 years ago, may help politicians avoid the same mistakes. China’s continued emphasis on the need for a “peaceful rise” owes something to a knowledge of the terrible errors of Imperial Japan.
Second, there is a plausible argument that the 66 years of peace between the major powers and developed nations since 1945 actually reflects the progress of civilisation, rather than a lucky cycle in world history. In his recent book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature”, Steven Pinker of Harvard University, argues that mankind is becoming steadily less warlike and that “today we may be living in the most peaceable era in human history”.
Finally, the developed world is starting from a much higher level of affluence than it did the 1930s. In an economic crash people might still lose their savings, their jobs and their homes – but they are less likely to be reduced to utter destitution. As a result, they may be less prone to political radicalisation. The Latvian economy shrank by 18 per cent in 2009 – but in the recent election there, two centrist parties came out on top. In Spain, unemployment is already over 22 per cent – and over 45 per cent for the young. And yet a moderate centre-right party won this month’s election.
So, although the risk of a severe economic crisis is very real, I don’t believe that we are at risk of sliding back into war. But that may simply be the failure of imagination of somebody lucky enough to be raised in a period of unparalleled peace and prosperity.
The long shadow of the 1930s
The long shadow of the 1930s - FT.com
Could things go bad again? I mean really bad – Great Depression bad, world war bad? The kind of cataclysmic event my generation has learned to think belongs only in the history books.
There is certainly a sense of foreboding in Europe at the moment. Speaking in Berlin on Monday night, Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, warned: “We are standing on the edge of a precipice.” President Sarkozy of France cautioned recently: “If the euro explodes, Europe would explode. It’s the guarantee of peace in a continent where there were terrible wars.”
European politicians have often indulged in shroud-waving about the threat of war, to rally support for the beloved European project. In normal times, few Europeans take such talk seriously.
On the contrary, war talk seems inherently implausible to people raised in prosperous, peaceful western Europe. I have lived my entire life in a world in which, for all its ups-and-downs, things seemed to be getting steadily better. Nazism had been defeated; dictatorships fell in Spain, Portugal and Greece; the Soviet empire collapsed; apartheid ended in South Africa.
Peace and prosperity became the norm for my generation in the West. It was easy to forget that this set us apart from most of the rest of the world. Reading a book recently by Yan Xuetong, a Chinese academic I know, I was taken aback to come across this sentence: “During the cultural revolution, we often saw people being beaten to death, so you become somewhat immune to it.”
However, over the last 30 years, the hope for peace, prosperity and a reasonable degree of comfort has spread beyond the privileged confines of the West. The China of the Cultural Revolution has given way to the China of the shopping mall and the factory. The India of Mother Theresa is being partly displaced by the India of the IT revolution.
Globalisation has made the world seem like a safer and more homogenous place – as the new middle-classes of Asia and eastern Europe embraced the comforts and values of capitalism. Global peace, which during the cold war seemed to depend on nuclear weapons, now seemed to be underpinned by international trade and a shared embrace of consumerism.
Until the global economic crisis, the words of Tony Blair’s election campaign song in 1997 seemed to capture the spirit of the age – “Things can only get better”.
Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, we have discovered that things can definitely get worse. The question is how much worse?
The risk of a grave economic crisis in Europe is severe. The threats of sovereign-debt defaults and the break-up of the European single currency are rising – and with it, the attendant threats of collapsing banks, popular panic, deep recessions and mass unemployment. That would indeed feel like a modern version of the Great Depression.
The European Union, taken as a whole, is the largest economy in the world – so economic chaos here inevitably has global ramifications. It would depress trade and threaten the global financial system.
The lesson of the 1930s is that a global depression weakens democracies, leads to the rise of radical new political forces – and, in the process, raises the risk of international conflict.
A modern version of the 1930s would see a new generation of nationalist politicians rise to power in Europe, against a background of economic chaos and the break-up of the European Union. Tensions would also rise outside Europe, as the global economic situation worsened. The balance of power in Asia would shift even faster, with a rising China facing a weakened America. In both China and America, an economic crisis would see nationalist and protectionist forces gain influence.
These scenarios are not implausible. And yet, for all the parallels, I still cannot bring myself to believe that we are heading back to the 1930s. There are three main reasons why I think we are likely to escape.
First, the very knowledge of what went wrong, 80 years ago, may help politicians avoid the same mistakes. China’s continued emphasis on the need for a “peaceful rise” owes something to a knowledge of the terrible errors of Imperial Japan.
Second, there is a plausible argument that the 66 years of peace between the major powers and developed nations since 1945 actually reflects the progress of civilisation, rather than a lucky cycle in world history. In his recent book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature”, Steven Pinker of Harvard University, argues that mankind is becoming steadily less warlike and that “today we may be living in the most peaceable era in human history”.
Finally, the developed world is starting from a much higher level of affluence than it did the 1930s. In an economic crash people might still lose their savings, their jobs and their homes – but they are less likely to be reduced to utter destitution. As a result, they may be less prone to political radicalisation. The Latvian economy shrank by 18 per cent in 2009 – but in the recent election there, two centrist parties came out on top. In Spain, unemployment is already over 22 per cent – and over 45 per cent for the young. And yet a moderate centre-right party won this month’s election.
So, although the risk of a severe economic crisis is very real, I don’t believe that we are at risk of sliding back into war. But that may simply be the failure of imagination of somebody lucky enough to be raised in a period of unparalleled peace and prosperity.
Re: Contagion
ECB overnight lending jumps to €8bn
ECB overnight lending jumps to €8bn - FT.com
December 2, 2011 9:37 am
By David Oakley
Eurozone banks borrowed more than €8bn from the European Central Bank overnight on Thursday, the highest amount since March, in a sign of the deep strains in the financial markets.
Traders said the jump of overnight lending by the ECB highlighted the inability of virtually all eurozone banks, with the exception of the very strongest, to get funding from the markets.
One trader said: “Just look at my screen. It tells the story. I have one big European bank willing to lend and 40 banks wanting to borrow. And look at those names, they aren’t little regional banks. They are some the biggest banks in the eurozone and they can’t get funding in the marketplace. They have to go to the ECB.”
Other traders said the spike might be an exceptional, one-off. For them, it is worrying, but only extremely serious if the high level of borrowing from the ECB continues. In that instance, then in the eyes of some it suggests the private lending markets for eurozone banks has more or less broken down.
The ECB emergency lending facility saw €8.64bn loaned to eurozone banks on Thursday – the highest since spikes in March when crippled Irish banks were forced to turn to the central bank for large amounts of cash.
It is also significant as the banks have to pay 2 per cent to borrow from the ECB compared with only 0.74 per cent in the marketplace, a considerable mark-up that puts yet more strains on banks borrowing billions of euros.
The depth of the funding problem for almost all eurozone banks highlights why central banks were forced to take emergency action this week by reducing the cost of borrowing dollars.
The cost of dollar funding for European banks has shot up this week to levels last seen in October 2008 in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
For eurozone banks needing to exchange euros for dollars, the premium or extra cost has leapt to more than a percentage point, stretching even the banks with the strongest balance sheets.
Stresses in the system elsewhere appeared to be easing, however. Sovereign bond yields, which have an inverse relationship with prices, were tumbling. Italy, the most distressed market of the big eurozone economies, saw yields dip below the key 6.5 per cent level that investors have long considered the point where country’s debt becomes unsustainable.
ECB overnight lending jumps to €8bn
ECB overnight lending jumps to €8bn - FT.com
December 2, 2011 9:37 am
By David Oakley
Eurozone banks borrowed more than €8bn from the European Central Bank overnight on Thursday, the highest amount since March, in a sign of the deep strains in the financial markets.
Traders said the jump of overnight lending by the ECB highlighted the inability of virtually all eurozone banks, with the exception of the very strongest, to get funding from the markets.
One trader said: “Just look at my screen. It tells the story. I have one big European bank willing to lend and 40 banks wanting to borrow. And look at those names, they aren’t little regional banks. They are some the biggest banks in the eurozone and they can’t get funding in the marketplace. They have to go to the ECB.”
Other traders said the spike might be an exceptional, one-off. For them, it is worrying, but only extremely serious if the high level of borrowing from the ECB continues. In that instance, then in the eyes of some it suggests the private lending markets for eurozone banks has more or less broken down.
The ECB emergency lending facility saw €8.64bn loaned to eurozone banks on Thursday – the highest since spikes in March when crippled Irish banks were forced to turn to the central bank for large amounts of cash.
It is also significant as the banks have to pay 2 per cent to borrow from the ECB compared with only 0.74 per cent in the marketplace, a considerable mark-up that puts yet more strains on banks borrowing billions of euros.
The depth of the funding problem for almost all eurozone banks highlights why central banks were forced to take emergency action this week by reducing the cost of borrowing dollars.
The cost of dollar funding for European banks has shot up this week to levels last seen in October 2008 in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
For eurozone banks needing to exchange euros for dollars, the premium or extra cost has leapt to more than a percentage point, stretching even the banks with the strongest balance sheets.
Stresses in the system elsewhere appeared to be easing, however. Sovereign bond yields, which have an inverse relationship with prices, were tumbling. Italy, the most distressed market of the big eurozone economies, saw yields dip below the key 6.5 per cent level that investors have long considered the point where country’s debt becomes unsustainable.
Re: Contagion
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0YPw1hf44w]Capital Account: Reggie Middleton on MF Global, Goldman Sachs, and the Vampire Squid (12/01/11) - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0YPw1hf44w]Capital Account: Reggie Middleton on MF Global, Goldman Sachs, and the Vampire Squid (12/01/11) - YouTube[/ame]
Re: Contagion
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWI-aQRL_ko]Debt and Redemption (Marije Meerman, VPRO Backlight 2010) - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWI-aQRL_ko]Debt and Redemption (Marije Meerman, VPRO Backlight 2010) - YouTube[/ame]
Re: Contagion
Last edited by a moderator:
Re: Contagion
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsMj59hyJOQ]Chris Martenson and James Turk talk about Europe and the global economy - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsMj59hyJOQ]Chris Martenson and James Turk talk about Europe and the global economy - YouTube[/ame]
Re: Contagion
S&P 'to warn euro nations of possible credit downgrade'
BBC News - S&P 'to warn euro nations of possible credit downgrade'
Just about Every Country in Europe Downgraded
Fund My Mutual Fund: Just about Every Country in Europe Downgraded
S&P 'to warn euro nations of possible credit downgrade'
BBC News - S&P 'to warn euro nations of possible credit downgrade'
Just about Every Country in Europe Downgraded
Fund My Mutual Fund: Just about Every Country in Europe Downgraded
Last edited:
Re: Contagion
Standard & Poor's Puts Ratings On Eurozone Sovereigns On CreditWatch With Negative Implications
S&P: Standard & Poor's Puts Ratings On Eurozone Sovereigns On CreditWatch With Negative Implications
Standard & Poor's Puts Ratings On Eurozone Sovereigns On CreditWatch With Negative Implications
S&P: Standard & Poor's Puts Ratings On Eurozone Sovereigns On CreditWatch With Negative Implications
Re: Contagion
There could be trouble ahead
In 2008 the world dodged a second Depression by avoiding the mistakes that led to the first. But there are further lessons to be learned for both Europe and America
Lessons of the 1930s: There could be trouble ahead | The Economist
There could be trouble ahead
In 2008 the world dodged a second Depression by avoiding the mistakes that led to the first. But there are further lessons to be learned for both Europe and America
Lessons of the 1930s: There could be trouble ahead | The Economist
Re: Contagion
Eurusd 130!
Eurusd 130!
Re: Contagion
Nigel Farage: On the Titanic towards Economic and Democratic Disaster
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOgtEBhV4DE]Nigel Farage: On the Titanic towards Economic and Democratic Disaster - YouTube[/ame]
Nigel Farage: On the Titanic towards Economic and Democratic Disaster
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOgtEBhV4DE]Nigel Farage: On the Titanic towards Economic and Democratic Disaster - YouTube[/ame]
Re: Contagion
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPcWHBPYOSU]THE SHOCKING TRUTH OF THE PENDING EU COLLAPSE! - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPcWHBPYOSU]THE SHOCKING TRUTH OF THE PENDING EU COLLAPSE! - YouTube[/ame]
Re: Contagion
What really caused the eurozone crisis?
BBC News - What really caused the eurozone crisis?
What really caused the eurozone crisis?
BBC News - What really caused the eurozone crisis?
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Re: Contagion
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtzQAr59i-8]Market Update special edition : Interview with Megan Greene about the Eurozone crisis - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtzQAr59i-8]Market Update special edition : Interview with Megan Greene about the Eurozone crisis - YouTube[/ame]
Re: Contagion
What is described in the following video regarding pension plans has been ongoing here in the good ole USA! Further, if you have a 401(K), take a gander at the fees!
Episode 226 — RT
What is described in the following video regarding pension plans has been ongoing here in the good ole USA! Further, if you have a 401(K), take a gander at the fees!
Episode 226 — RT
Re: Contagion
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